Night - Chapter 1

Will you:

Read and annotate the first chapter of Night by Elie Wiesel. Listen to and read the words at the same time. Pause frequently to annotate the text. You can also record your reading of this chapter on VoiceThread. Then write your response to the first chapter, using one or two of the five questions in this mission. Next, get engaged in a conversation about this part of Night by commenting on another student's discussion post about chapter one. Also, be sure to reply to anybody's comment on your own discussion post. In between all of that, play the Quizlet games to review your comprehension of the text. Finally, do more research on the Holocaust, and add your findings to another comment or reply on another discussion post about Chapter 1.

Let's read an important section of Night - Chapter 1 aloud. Record yourself reading pages in this VoiceThread. (You will need to log in. You can register if you don't have an account, or ask your teacher.) You should practice first. Also listen to the other recordings on each page.

Use a Google Doc to compose, share and get comments from peers, revise, proofread, and edit an essay that follows one of the suggested guides. Then post your literary essay as a discussion on Youth Voices.

1. Describe in detail the character of Eliezer or Moishe the Beadle. What is the nature of their relationship? Although you should start by describing either Eliezer or Moishe the Beadle, be sure to include both in your writing. Use either Tracking the Characters or Character Traits and Relationships.

2. Consider Eliezer’s feelings for his family, especially his father. What about his father’s character or place in the Jewish community of Sighet commands Eliezer’s respect or admiration? Use either Character Analysis Introduction or Character Archetypes to describe the character of Eliezer's father and his place in the Jewish community. Be sure to also include Eliezer's feelings about his family and father.

3. Early in the narrative, Moishe tells Eliezer, “Man asks and God replies. But we don’t understand His replies. We cannot understand them” (p. 5). Is this a paradox? How does Eliezer react to this seemingly unfair assertion? Apply Moishe’s statement to the ongoing crisis of faith that Eliezer faces throughout the course of this chapter of Night. Use either "Tracking the Themes / Seguimiento de los Temas or Questioning and Speculating to begin talking about this theme in Night.

4. “And then, one day all foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet,” writes Wiesel, quite bluntly. “And Moishe the Beadle was a foreigner” (p. 6). Why do you suppose this shocking information is delivered so matter-of-factly? What is the point of Wiesel’s abruptness? Also, consider the manner in which Moishe is treated by the Jews of Sighet after he has escaped the Gestapo’s capture. Are the people happy to see him? Is he himself even happy to be alive? Explain why Moishe has returned to the village. Why don’t the Jewish townspeople believe the horrible news he brings back to them? Use either Character Analysis Introduction or Character Archetypes to describe the character of Moishe the Beadle and how he is treated by the Jews of Sighet after he has escaped the Gestapo’s capture. Be sure to also include your thoughts about why the townspeople are in denial.

5. Time and again, the people of Sighet doubt the advance of the German army. Why? When the Germans do arrive, and even once they have moved all the Jews into ghettos, the Jewish townspeople still seem to ignore or suppress their fear. “Most people thought that we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before” (p. 12). What might be the reasons for the townspeople’s widespread denial of the evidence facing them? Use either "Tracking the Themes / Seguimiento de los Temas or Questioning and Speculating to begin talking about this theme of denial in Night.

I was always interested in reading about people’s experience of the holocaust. Although there are a few storytellers due to the remaining people who survived. This story was written by Elie Wiesel, a...